Irritation
by Steelcircle
Summary: Scrapper deals with an annoying visitor from the art world.


**Irritation**

"Why do you never attend fetes?" Is that what they call parties now, I wonder? He is eager, rude, brightly hued, and foolish, as they all are, and he is interrupting my work.

"I have better things to do," I say gruffly, not looking at him. He will not be deterred so easily. They never are. Unfortunately, he has somehow procured clearance to be here and bother me. Perhaps he bribed a higher-up. So I must at least make a pretence of talking with him for now.

"Don't you miss seeing your colleagues?"

"I see plenty of them every day."

"Oh... but aren't they just a part of you?"

"You're just being stupid," I growl. How they prod and probe and poke where they ought not, making such assumptions.

"Still, there'd be others in your field around, like Master Phasebind," he insists, switching tracks slightly. How pretentious a term 'Master' is, as if to say that there is nothing left to learn for such individuals.

"Phasebind is not in my field." This statement confuses the unwanted intruder. Certainly, Phasebind vivincorporates, but his motivation is completely different than mine. He seeks petty domination over the souls of others. I give my subjects the due honour that they deserve. I do not expect him - either Phasebind or this cretin - to understand.

"Well, you could talk with someone who is in your field, then." The invader sounds a little frustrated now. Good.

"Now, what would I have to say to him?" I cock my head a little to one side and stare at him, challenging him to answer. I have little to say to the others in my field. If they understand, my explanations would only be redundant. If they don't, I can't explain it to them in any way that would have meaning. Infrequently, we'll swap new discoveries, but we have no need of the trappings of a celebration for that task.

Gaudily gleaming, a poor disguise for his internal dullness, he stands mystified. I defy his social laws of mindless chatter. I deprive him of his paradigm about how I ought to act; undermine the foundation of his argument. "Well," he says slowly, regrouping his forces. "There are the events to consider."

"The showing of recent works? Such an easy one for me." Most of my work is not art at all. The few pieces that are art are as difficult to transport as any building, and the utter incomprehension from the onlookers would make such an event of my own pointless.

"The refreshments-"

"-are more cheaply obtained at an oil house."

He pauses and frowns, befuddled again. "They're free at most fetes."

"Yes, and the oil house still has them for a lower cost." Thereby, I avoid paying those pleasantries so dearly bought, teased out like mangled, twisted wire from a wound. In any case, Mixmaster informs me that to drink at an artist's party is to take one's life into one's hands.

"The games-"

"-are a waste of time, much as you are. I tire of this nonsense. Leave." I have given him his audience; he can ask no more of me.

He is not too thick to sense the growing malice in my words and waves, malice which has been crystallising out of solution into hard hostility ever since I first saw him, but he leaps to wrong conclusions, as fools so often do. So he contests my ire, asking, "Or what?"

"Or I'll kill you," I say, half-flippant but more serious. "Bodies are easier to dispose of than you'd think."

He is still too much the fool for fright, so he settles on incredulity. Again, my answer breaks his carefully preconceived notions, about me and about how much protection his little pass offers. I ask slowly, as if speaking to someone stupid, which I am, "What were you expecting?"

"You're a vivincorporator," he says dumbly, as if to reassure himself.

"I'm a Decepticon, too, if you hadn't noticed. I don't let art get in the way of my factional prerogatives." Privately, I call up Bonecrusher, _Expect a garish looking bootleg to be running out of my office soon._

_Break him? _my comrade asks, eager and instantly understanding of my ill will.

_Leave him alive enough to send back, though. Perhaps his kind will get the message._

_Doubt it._

The intruder looks at my sigil as if willing it away. He has finally concluded that I am serious, perhaps, and bolts out the door. Bonecrusher will handle him. I don't have the time.

**The End**


End file.
